This time around, our first travel day was much less hectic. We actually got our rental cars in a reasonable time frame, nobody got left anywhere, and we got our run in before dark, although I'm entirely convinced that the place we did our post-plane shakeout was 100% haunted. It was called Big Bone Lick Park, and everything about the situation was reminiscent of a horror film. It all got started when our vans got split up and we couldn't find half of our group, then when we tried to call them, we found that there was no cell service in the park. Fortunately, there were a very limited number of places to turn off, so we quickly found them less than half a mile away. Just so you can all appreciate how clearly haunted this area was, I'll describe it to you in unnecessary amounts of detail. The place we parked was a "picnic area" which consisted of a swing set, some slides, a run down picnic bench under a tree, and a covered picnic area with bathrooms attached. The ground was marshy, probably with several dead bodies just below the surface, and to the left, there was a meadow with what looked like a run-down set of wooden bleachers and a rusted out fence that were once part of a baseball field. I was absolutely certain that the tap water in the bathroom was pumped out of the marshes around us, and that I probably got some angry spirits on my skin when I washed my hands. The entire area was overcast, which could've just been a weather thing, but more likely was a large group of souls trapped eternally in that area thing. Coach had planned out a loop for us to run, and with about two miles to go, we found ourselves on the far side of a lake, with me believing that the vans were at least fifteen miles away and that we were going to get crazy murdered by the locals. Seriously, it's the eve of Friday the 13th, it's overcast, we're running down back roads on the shore of a lake, and there are tiny lake houses and random campers on either side of the road. Try and tell me that doesn't sound like a setup for a horror film. Also, earlier in the week I talked to Sonia about the fact that every time I eat peanut butter, I get wildly nauseated and feel like I'm dying, so she suggested that I maybe not eat peanut butter so much anymore, so naturally I had a peanut butter sandwich and multiple peanut butter bars on the plane and spent the entire run convinced that I was going to die. So things were going great.
The morning of the course preview, after having flung all of my possessions across the hotel room after promising myself that I would stay neat and contained on this trip, I realized that I somehow lost one of my racing socks. I definitely had other socks that I could have raced in, but I am very particular about what goes on my feet when I'm racing, and without my ultra-lite no-show tabbed Feetures, there was no way that I would be lining up to race the next day. I probably would've just flown back to Utah that night. Okay, maybe not. But I wouldn't have been happy. Fortunately, I have the greatest coaches on earth, so after the course preview-which was absolutely fantastic, the amount of love this team has for each other and enthusiasm we have to race and race well for each other is like nothing I have ever experienced with any other team-Sarah drove me to a local running store where I got the very last pair of size medium ultra-lite no-show Feetures that they had, which were an extremely aggressive neon orange.
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| Photos courtesy of Michael Scott |
The race itself was different from the first three I ran this year, for obvious reasons. This race had a significantly stronger field, so it got out hard from the gun and never really offered an opportunity to settle in. Going into this race, the plan was to go out close to the top ten, cover any gaps that opened up, and move up the last 2k. Because of the sheer size of the race, this wasn't quite as easy as I anticipated it being, simply because so many girls surged for the front from the beginning. Mentally, it was a bit challenging to have to work around other runners to be close to the front and run in the middle of a large pack rather than frontrunning easy. I'm definitely grateful that we had the chance to race here before nationals and I could get some experience running a race that size, because there are some factors here and there that I need to improve on when running with such a large, talented group, and now I know what to change and have time to change it. I ended up finishing ninth, and I feel extremely conflicted about it. Last year, my goal was to crack the top thirty in this race, and I fell far short of it, so this year was a huge improvement, but I still feel that I didn't race as well as I could've, with the heat and the race size influencing my performance more than I would've liked, so right now I think I'm happy with the race, but not satisfied. There is still over a month until nationals, though, so I think that's a good place to be going into the sharpening phase for championship season.
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| On that pain train for the team |
The team finish was the real highlight of that day. Our women worked together and showed up to prove that we deserve to be nationally ranked. We placed fourth, beating the #4 ranked team in the nation to do so and only placing behind #1, 2, and 9 ranked teams. A text post can't really convey how exciting that is. FOURTH PLACE AT PRE-NATIONALS. BEHIND ONLY TOP-10 RANKED TEAMS. IN FRONT OF #4. It's a pretty dang big deal. We established pretty clearly that we are certainly the best women's team in Utah, and that there are few teams in the region or nation that we can't at least hold our own against. Guys, I'm pumped. My heart is racing a little just typing this up because we still have a month before the regional meet and we aren't going to back off. We are ready to be the first USU team to go to nationals, and we are going to show up to regionals even more fit and sharp than we are now. Both the men and the women have been making sacrifices and doing more for this team than we ever have before. We are willing to do whatever it takes. Seriously, whatever it takes-we've got the EPO in the fridge in our training room ready to inject right before regionals. Just kidding, I promise we aren't doping, we just have some kick-ass coaches and a love for each other that drives us to train and race for something bigger than ourselves.
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